Florida's Alan Grayson on His First Bill: The Pay for Performance Act ("No One Should Get Rich Off Abject Failure")

 by Damozel |  How awesome is this?  So awesome....

Rep. Alan Grayson gives a floor statement supporting his first bill, the Pay for Performance Act, which caps executive pay for companies partially owned by the taxpayer (through the TARP program). Under this bill, taxpayer owned companies must pay their employees a salary that is not unreasonable or excessive, and bonuses must be performance-based. (Rep. Alan Grayson)

At Huffington Post, Grayson explained his position:  "Stop stealing our money."

[L]et's be clear about what has happened. The government owns stakes in many companies through the TARP program, and Congress tried to put executive compensation restrictions on those companies. Big banks, though, were able to carve out an exception for any contract signed before February. AIG executives drove a truck through that exception and stuffed their pockets with our money. This bill closes that loophole.

The arguments against this bill are fairly predictable. The conservative Washington Examiner said that the bill grants the government 'extraordinary power' to set salaries. But the power it grants is pretty standard; the taxpayers are owners, and owners of companies set salaries for their employees.

Of course, there is a simple solution to this problem for any financial institution bent on paying its employees unreasonable and excessive compensation - just pay the taxpayer money bank to the taxpayer, and then you are free to act responsibly or irresponsibly. This bill grants the government the authority to act like any other owner of an institution, and when that ownership stake goes away, so do these restrictions....

These bad banks have come close to destroying our economy. They did so to enrich the small group of employees who made horrible, and in some cases, illegal bets. Calling these bad banks "casinos" is a disservice to casinos, who must actually by law hold money to back all the bets they've taken in. Calling these con artists "bank robbers" is a disservice to bank robbers, who can only steal as much money as the bank holds at the time, without tapping into taxpayer funds, too.

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